★★☆☆☆
25 October 2012
This article is a review of SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS. |
“You were the one who thought psychopaths were so interesting; they get tiresome after awhile,” Hans (Christopher Walken) to Marty (Colin Farrell)
Exactly Hans, exactly.
Hello! The writer-director of the brilliant IN BRUGES tackling psychos with a cast that includes: Walken, Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Tom Waits, Harry Dean Stanton and Woody Harrelson. This was off the chart of my anticipation. Not only is SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS a disappointing follow-up to Martin McDonagh’s modern crime black comedy classic, it’s a poor film full stop.
Exactly Hans, exactly.
Hello! The writer-director of the brilliant IN BRUGES tackling psychos with a cast that includes: Walken, Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Tom Waits, Harry Dean Stanton and Woody Harrelson. This was off the chart of my anticipation. Not only is SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS a disappointing follow-up to Martin McDonagh’s modern crime black comedy classic, it’s a poor film full stop.
Worryingly, and with alarm bells gently triggered, we leap into the action with two hitmen talking about THE GODFATHER, and there’s stunt casting – cameos from Michael Pitt and Michael Stuhlbarg. We are then introduced to masked psychopath number one, whose calling card is a playing card, the jack of diamonds. Then we have Marty, a successful screenwriter with writer’s block, who has a title for a new project, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, but that’s about it. His BFF is an actor, Billy (the uniformly excellent Rockwell), who encourages him and has his back. To get Marty’s creative juices flowing, Billy places an ad in the paper for psychopaths to come and be interviewed. We now get stories within stories. What once seemed clever has now been pretty much killed off, by Woody Allen and Charlie Kaufman, as something original. And as a narrative device there is no panache here. We are introduced to the seven of the title over the course of the piece. The masked number one reveal is of zero surprise. It all feels like those duff 90s Tarantino knockoffs or an off form Guy Ritchie. Not high praise I know.
In the Q&A after the screening, McDonagh talked how he was thinking of Sam Peckinpah and Terrence Malick, this a love child of the two. And said the film was about love and peace. WTF?! I sat there incredulously. Were those statements a joke? Has self-delusion set-in?
Unlike Farrell’s hilariously tetchy turn in IN BRUGES, he is the straight man here, and just seems lost as to how make an impact. Rockwell, Walken, Harrelson, Stanton and Waits get the hyperactive/intense character traits. So the leading man, our hook, is bland. Plus there’s a nagging sense of hatefulness to proceedings. There are homophobic jokes; and the female characters are drawn so woefully, as to wonder if misogyny is at play. The lines of dialogue drop like lead out of characters’ mouths. Only the charisma and legend status of so much of the cast makes SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS watchable.